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FIFA is facing strong criticism from the global players’ union, FIFPro, after it was excluded from a key meeting on player welfare held by FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
The meeting took place in New York on Saturday, ahead of the Club World Cup final. FIFA said there was “consensus” among participants that players should get at least 72 hours of rest between matches and a minimum 21-day break at the end of each season.
However, BBC Sport has been told that no representatives from Fifpro, which represents 66,000 players, or the Professional Footballers’ Association were present.
FIFA described the talks as “productive” and said they involved “several player unions from around the world”. But Fifpro said it was not invited and questioned the identity of some people shown in a photograph released by Fifa.
In a statement, Fifpro president Sergio Marchi criticised the process and said the tournament had been staged “without dialogue, without sensitivity and without respect” for players.
He added: “What was presented as a global festival of football was nothing more than a fiction staged by Fifa, driven by its president… A grandiloquent staging that inevitably recalls the ‘bread and circuses’ of Nero’s Rome.”
Marchi also warned about extreme heat during the competition: “The tournament also took place under unacceptable conditions, with matches being played in extremely hot weather and at temperatures that put the physical integrity of the players at risk. This situation must not only be denounced, but must also be strongly condemned.”
Fifpro said it has repeatedly warned Fifa about the intense match calendar and lack of proper rest for players. Last month, it published a report calling for a four-week off-season – longer than the 21-day break agreed at the meeting.
Fifa said on Sunday that rest days, long-haul travel, and weather conditions should be considered in the future international match calendar. It also said there was agreement on “striking the right balance” between national and club football.
Infantino called the Club World Cup “the most successful” in history, declaring: “The golden era of global club football has started.”
Fifpro disagrees. In a separate statement, it said: “This competition hides a dangerous disconnect with the true reality experienced by most footballers around the world… a fiction created by Fifa, promoted by its president.”
It also accused Fifa of acting unilaterally and prioritising profit: “This way of organising tournaments… is unilateral, authoritarian and based solely on a logic of economic profitability, not human sustainability.”
The Club World Cup final between Chelsea and PSG was held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday and ended with the London-based club lifting the first edition of the expanded competition.
